Box Office #2

[BuffyFanOne]

It is great that this is in the #2 spot but it only made a little over 10 mill. Seems funny to say ONLY 10 million but predictions had it at 16 million.

I am just happy that it held its own aginst Flightplan and The Corpse Bride.

One exciting thing is that it beat the per theater gross of A History of Violence and that movie has early buzz of a best picture nomination.

I hope word of mouth picks up on Serenity. It really deserves better than a 10 mill opening weekend.

Still, not bad considering it is based on a cancled tv show!
I am just happy to have them back!

[cosmicspidey]

The take wasn't that great, but it did open as the #1 new movie of the weekend. It kicked the crap out of Into the Blue, which I thought would probably dominate, what with Jessica Alba being in a bikini and all.

[BillyBudd]

Here's what I said in the other thread...

I've heard that a film needs to make twice its budget before a studio starts seeing profits. The reason is that the theaters themselves take a big chunk of the gross. Anyway, Serenity cost about $40 million (not including advertising costs), so it would need to make at least $80 million. I really don't see that happening. Of course, I'm not taking into account DVD sales.

[DanMan]

The promotion plan has never been for a huge opening weekend really... it's all meant to be word of mouth. If it can hold close to that $10 mill. next week, it has a chance for a long theatrical run making some good money. If the drop-off is 50% or more, it'll be a theatrical failure.

[rogueslayer2]

Why is the US movie chart so backwards Over here in the UK a film is released on the Friday then its given a full week before its counted in the chart. Serenity has been out for 2 DAYS and already people are saying its a failure (not reffering to people on this board but on others).

Lol, its not been given a chance to make an impact. Like others have said its all about word of mouth and more fantastic reviews. I see it climbing to #1, making some kind of movie history, or at least I hope so because it really does deserve it!

Besides, it still has International sales (its gonna be huge over here in the UK, we seem to have a thing for decent movies *cough* flightplan ) and then theres DVD sales which was Firefly's saving grace.

[Sammie]

It isn't even out here yet (it isn't out yet in any european country is it? or maybe just the UK?), so it's too early to say. I believe Buffy did better in Europe... (mostly the UK and France), so maybe Serenity will too.

[Alyrenee]

Well I plan to see it about three more times at least in the theatre....it was so great.

[x-esque]

There's really no good reason for the emphasis on "opening weekend" numbers. Studios look at them for the first big return on their investment, but I'm not so sure they matter as much anymore. They are dependant on how many theaters a movie is playing, and how much a movie was advertised over and over for the previous 2 weeks. Everyone stresses their importance when it comes to deciding on a sequel, but I think that factor is dimishing.

This is a startling statistic (from Slate):

Ticket sales from theaters provided 100 percent of the studios' revenues in 1948; in 2003, they accounted for less than 20 percent. Instead, home entertainment provided 82 percent of the 2003 revenues.

Everything is just like a big preparation for DVD now. Big ads so people are aware of stars, so that 2 months down the road they'll just buy the DVD. Wal-mart is much more important that the theater. You could make the same argument for cancelling TV shows: they'll still do well with DVD sales.

There's really no accounting for tastes of the audience too. Would people like better movies and shows? I think so, yes, but its cheaper and easier for a studio to go with a formulaic story, and this doesn't change too much because it is profitable. There's no studio incentive to make better movies.

An opening weekend is not going to differ too much from a whole opening week, because most tickets are sold on the weekend, and the following 4 days aren't too hard to guess. A movie would build over the course of the next few weekends, not so much during the week. It would be nice if Serenity did this, but studios may not give it a chance because they don't have too.

I am glad Serenity did better than Into the Blue too. Last friday I saw the picture of Mal next to Jessica Alba's and thought - oh this doesn't look good. Lots of people are saying the 10.1 million it made was on target.

[VampSpike]

buffyfanone said:

I am just happy that it held its own aginst Flightplan and The Corpse Bride.

One exciting thing is that it beat the per theater gross of A History of Violence and that movie has early buzz of a best picture nomination.

What? History of Violence, up for any sort of award? Woah! Never would of seen thar coming... I saw the trailer for that movie and it was enough to make my mind up about it!

Serenity on the other hand, which doesnt open were i am until Friday, looked awesome! And lots of my friends are already planning to go see it based on the one Ad, im looking forward to it!

[BuffyFanOne]

So far, A History of Violence is one of the best reviewed movies of the year. I think it was in Entertainment Weekly (but I am not sure, I read allot about movies) that listed allot of the current movies and showed all of their reviews and said how many positive, neutral, and negative reviews they had.
AHoV had 0 negative reviews, something like 3 neutral, and almost 20 positive. Serenity had 2 bad, 5 neutral, and 12 positive.
I don't know if those numbers are 100% accurate but it is an estimate. I do remember however that AHoV had 0 negative.